April 25, 2009

Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE was one of the most ground-breaking programs to air on television.Through its wonderful storytelling, it was able to explore and discuss prominent issues that are just as relevant today as they were in the 1950s and 1960s.Many shows and serieses have been inspired by THE TWILIGHT ZONE with varying degrees of success.The show is just as powerful and thought-provoking as it was when it first aired.

Therefore, I was very excited when I learned about the series of graphic novels from Walker & Company written by Mark Kneece and illustrated by Dove McHargue.Selected episodes from the original tv series that were written by Serling himself have been selected to be adapted into a series of graphic novels.

WALKING DISTANCE is one of the first titles in the series.In this story, Martin Sloan is an executive of an ad agency living life in the fast lane. He’s become highly successful and seems destined for more, but he’s very unhappy. He’s nostalgic for his past and wants to go home again. After blowing up a tire on the highway, Sloan realizes he’s only a short “walking distance” from his hometown. While his car is being worked on, he takes a jaunt into town to clear his head.As he begins his journey he crosses over into the Twilight Zone eventually learning an important lesson from someone in his past.

The illustrations are well done and the overall structure and tone of the graphic novel stay true to the spirit of the original episode.The text is written in a font a bit larger than most graphic novels and comics.“Walking Distance” wasn’t one of my favorite episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, but it is a good story to use as an introduction to the series.The book includes introductory and concluding essays as well as a page that gives many details about the original episode, including cast, crew, and trivia.For instance, I learned that “Walking Distance” is considered to be Serling’s most personal because the memories that Sloan has of Homewood are based upon Serling’s life growing up in Binghamton, NY.

Overall, this is a wonderful graphic novel that I really enjoyed and I look forward to reading more titles in the series.Recommened for fans of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, for people who enjoy graphic novels with good stories. Also recommended as a tool to introduce younger people to this classic television series.

April 21, 2009

Reason for Reading: I've been wanting to read this for quite some time. Longer than I even knew they were thinking about making a movie. I've often seen it on the library shelf but decided against picking up this very thick graphic novel. Of course, it took the recent movie to make me actually get up and read it but by then everybody else wanted to read it and I had to add my name to the very long waiting list at the library. Finally it was my turn.

Comments: Only a very broad summary can tell the premise of this plot without giving anything anyway and that hardly does the story any justice. A group of costumed heroes worked at thwarting crime during the forties, early fifties but they eventually went out of fashion in the fifties. But another younger, more resourceful group took over in the sixties only to have an act passed in '77 banning vigilantes altogether, except for a select few who worked for the government. This all takes place on an alternate earth where costumed vigilantes are real, Nixon is still President in the '80s (he removed the 2-term rule) and America won the Vietnam War. Now the world finds itself on the brink of World War III as US and Soviet Nuclear weapons are pointed at each other as the USSR starts to attack Asia starting with Afghanistan then Pakistan.

In this setting we have a more personal story of former superheroes, some retired, some still working underground and suddenly, former masked heroes are turning up dead or worse. One currently working costumed vigilante has an idea that someone is picking off former masked heroes and he tries to warn the others but no one really takes him seriously in this political clime of uncertainty.

This is an amazing book! The story is so intricate. Not only are the two main themes going on as described above but each of the superheroes involved carries their own personal subplot as well throughout the series. Amazingly everything ties together and I'm always stunned when a graphic novel can show such depth and intricacies with such limited text. Of all the great books I've read this month this is my favourite so far. Certainly a product of it's time; the eighties fear of nuclear attack from the Soviets, the Cold War, the threat of a third world war and yet somehow things never change. While the "bad guys" are different today, we still have these threats of nuclear arms making headlines today.

I'm really excited to see the movie now. I've purposely avoided any notice of it as I wanted to read the book without any preconceptions. I don't even know who is in the movie and that is why while reading the book I visualized one of the characters as a certain actor. Jon is a science experiment gone wrong and is a big blue muscular naked guy with a circle on his forehead. His voice is distinctly different from the others, unemotional, and I immediately thought of him as a Jaffa, T'ilk to be exact, and I just heard Christopher Judge's deep voice saying that character's voice throughout the novel! It's weird when that happens.

Back to the book, totally engrossing and riveting. I wish I hadn't waited this long. I said this was my favourite book of the month but this is also probably one of the finest graphic novels I've ever read. It is tough, hard and bloody and most definitely one for adults though, so don't go thinking of this is a "comic" and handing it off to the kiddies. Highly recommended!

April 17, 2009

I’m a huge Buffy fan but I prefer seasons 1 through 3 instead of the subsequent seasons. I find this a bit puzzling because I tend to like books and movies with adult protagonists more than teenagers. And yet the case of Buffy is clearly very young during the seasons 1-3. Then again, I’m of the opinion that the first three season are hold together far better plotwise and thematically than the later ones. (I especially disliked witchcraft as symbol for two different things which aren’t related to each other.) Still, there are episodes in the later seasons which I just love.

Anyway, I was thrilled to hear that Buffy would continue in comic book form. Was a bit less thrilled when I realized that I had to wait for them to come out in trade paperback form. I did manage to get in English before but now it has been published in Finnish, too! I was a bit worried about the translation since even the quality of the subtitles, er, varied a lot. This translator seems to know something about the Buffyverse although, alas, not quite enough. (For example, “Bored now” was translated into “Are you still bored”…)

The story starts a couple of years after the end of the TV-series and the world has changed. There are many Slayers now and Buffy and the gang are trying to mold them into a fighting force against the (supernatural) evils in the world. Buffy and Xander are in Scotland leading and teaching a strike team of Slayers while Andrew is in Italy and Giles is in some Islamic country. Willow is doing her own thing with Kennedy.

Buffy and a strike team take out a nest of demons. There they find out that the demons’ victim has a strange marking on his chest. Meanwhile, General Voll and his men are watching the Slayers. The General is convinced that Buffy and the Slayers are a threat to society or at the very least to the General’s own plans. His people have been investigating the remains of Sunnydale and have found two survivors there. One of them is Amy who really wants to kill Buffy.

Meanwhile in Scotland Dawn has grown into a giant. She refuses to tell how (or doesn’t know) and only wants to talk to Willow. Rumor has it that she dated a triple witch and he transformed her. Xander is leading the operations center while Buffy goes out as the leader of the strike team. Soon, Amy attacks. She puts Buffy under a sleeping spell and has an army of undead attacking the Scottish castle where the team is staying.

It’s nice to see that much of the charm of the Buffy –series is still here: humor, pop culture references, witty dialogue, plot twists. The basic situation is, of course, rather different; instead of a small group of (teenaged) friends who try to save the world and keep the police in the dark, the Slayers are a big group with all sorts of technology and apparently even a team of witches working for them. Still, many of the new characters remain faces in the crowd and the focus is on the old gang. There are also lots of references to characters and the events in the series. Even Ethan Rayne makes a guest appearance.

The last story is about a Buffy look alike who gets a very dangerous assignment.

If you’ve never watched Buffy, I would definitely recommend starting with the TV-show and not with this comic.

Art: Art gets just a 'meh' from me. I didn’t hate it which is always a positive sign but I didn’t love it either. The characters don’t really look like the actors although getting that right would have been very difficult anyway. I really liked the covers, though.

Overall: There is enough of a mix of old and new to make me a happy old Buffy fan!

April 15, 2009

American Born Chinese might be my favorite book of 2009. It was so much FUN to read. I laughed out loud several times, from the dialogue and the illustrations. Written in the format of a graphic novel it follows three story lines that come together at the end. It took me a minute to figure out the connection at the end, but it worked. Though I'm not an immigrant or the child of immigrants, I have several friends who are- and the references to what life is like in a new country seem to be spot on. There is nothing preachy in the story- but it does touch on the issues of racism, fitting in, crushes, and general teenage angst. I am definitely going to be buying a copy of this book to keep in my future classroom. This book would be appropriate for middle and high school students. I'd be interested to hear if other people love it as much as I did!

Awards:

2007 Printz Award WinnerNational Book Award finalistAmerican Library Association best Book for Young Adults, Top Ten ListPublisher's Weekly Best Book of the YearSchool Library Journal Best Book of the YearBooklist Editors' Choice BookSan Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the YearNPR Holiday Pickamazon.com Best Graphic Novel/Comic of the Year

April 14, 2009

Aya of Yop City, written by Marguerite Abouet and drawn by Clement Oubrerie, is the sequel to Abouet and Oubrerie's 2007 graphic novel, Aya. It's about a teenage girl named Aya and her group of family and friends set in the 1970s, in the Ivory Coast. It paints a very different picture of life in Africa than we normally get.

Aya's friend Adjoua has just had a baby and she needs help to rear the child. The father—nicknamed the 'Skirtchaser'—is missing and she's set to be married to the lazy son of a wealthy brewery owner. When they discover who the real father is, the wedding is called off and life starts to resume a normal pace. Aya's busy helping Adjoua with the baby while their friend Bintou falls for a rich-looking Parisian.

Life is delightfully normal in Abouet and Oubrerie's Aya of Yip City. The drama in their lives is not unlike the drama we find in our own, and it's a refreshing take on African culture. I would recommend it anyone whose looking for a quick and light read.

April 13, 2009

So here is my second read for this challenge (out of six). I looked to see if anyone else had reviewed Maus here, but it looks like it may just be on people's lists so far. Please let me know if you've reviewed it here and I missed it!The Complete Maus consists of both Maus I and II, bound together in a hardcover volume. I wanted to read them both together, to get the full story, and I am very glad I did. Maus is the story of Art Spiegelman's father, Vladek, and how he survived the holocaust. In the graphic novel, Jews are drawn as mice, Germans are cats, Poles are pigs, French are frogs, and Americans are dogs. The drawings make the material more unrealistic and yet they also draw us in more to the fact that though it seems unreal, this really happened.Vladek survived the holocaust mainly through luck, but also by taking advantage of the situations he finds himself in. His wife, Art's mother, also survives, but ends up committing suicide more than 20 years later. The novel is not just about the holocaust, but it also documents Art's efforts to get his father's story. He does not have a very good relationship with his cantankerous father, and the novel shows how he has a difficult time being fair to his story. It gives the work more depth, and makes it that much more real to the reader. So much has already been said about this book, but I had never gotten around to reading it. I am so glad I did, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has ever considered picking it up.

April 12, 2009

Courtney Crumrin is back in this third volume of her adventures. The book opens as she returns to her old neighborhood, where she lived with her parents before they were invited to move to the huge old Victorian house in another town and live with her eccentric old uncle. Her parents have been unable to sell their old house, and while they are wheeling and dealing, Courtney hooks up with her old best friend. Being with him makes him realize how much things have changed for her - and how the decisions she has made, for better or worse, have changed her life.

Things are still not easy for her - particularly now, as a rift has formed between her and Uncle Aloysius following the events that occured at the close of the previous book. As if that weren't bad enough, she must now attend "Saturday School" with other magically gifted children. She quickly discovers that she doesn't fit in any better there than at regular school. When a curse one of the other students casts, just to show off, has disastrous consequences, Courtney feels obliged to help fix the situation, even though it means returning to the very dangerous Twilight Kingdom.

In previous volumes, Courtney has taken some rather ruthless steps to see that justice (as she sees it) is served - edging very close to the darkest side of the magical world. Here she is thrust into a new position of responsibility, and it is fascinating to see her maneuver through these new demands and ethical choices. She has been on her own, for the most part, in the previous volumes, but now she is with - gasp - some...could they actually be friends?

This is fast becoming one of my favorite graphic novel series. I love the dark humor, the striking illustrations, the moral ambiguity that is explored throughout, and most of all, smart, feisty, no-nonsense Courtney, whose character is further developed in each volume of this compelling series.

April 9, 2009

This is an alternate reality tale of the Justice League on Earth without Superman. I really like alternate tales so I was mostly happy with this one, too.

On this Earth, a nail has punctured the Kent’s car tire and they decided not to go to Smallville on the very day when infant Clark comes to Earth and so, there’s no Superman who would become the paragon of goodness. Apparently, none of the other heroes can replace Superman’s influence and so they are regarded with fear and suspicion.

Of course, the campaign of suspicion is organized by Lex Luthor who is the newly re-elected mayor of Metropolis. His deputy is none other than Jimmy Olsen. Luthor campaigned hard against all metahumans; claiming that they are all a menace to society. Luthor is keeping Metropolis safe by draconian means: moving to and from the city is limited and armored troops are everywhere.

The former Green Arrow is also talking against the JLA. He was grievously wounded in a fight against Amazo and is now bitterly claiming that the superheroes are staging a war against the villains while in reality they are taking over. The situation is especially hard on his former girlfriend the Black Canary. In this world, she formed the Outsiders in order to give Oliver his own group. He didn’t like it, of course.

All this suspicion is, of course, also making the JLA members bicker amongst themselves, too. However, the Green Lantern suggests a solution of some kind: Lois Lane would follow them around for a while and give good press to the JLA. Not everyone is comfortable with this but they agree to try it.

But things turn, of course, for the worse. First, a group of armored men kidnaps the Doom Patrol. Then the Green Lantern finds out that someone has erected an indestructible barrier around Earth. At the same time, someone has given the Joker an incredibly powerful gauntlet and he uses it to free everyone in the Arkham Asylum. Batman confronts him but is powerless. Against Batman’s orders his sidekicks Robin and Batgirl try to help and Joker kills both of them. Something snaps inside Batman and in turn he fights and kills Joker. In front of cameras and while the asylum itself burns to the ground around them.

This JLA is a somewhat darker version. Even though many of them fight for the ideals of heroism, they don’t tend to trust each other and divide into different camps after the battle is over. They also don’t seem to have a leader and instead argue/ discuss every move.

I’m a bit skeptical that Superman’s absence would make metahumans’ general image so bad that it would be easy to smear them. Then again, Luthor’s campaign has been going on for years and even in the regular universe, the general public has turned against JLA even when they do have Superman.

There are little treats all over the album for older fans. Since I’m not very familiar with DC I’m fairly certain that I didn’t get them all. Both Star Sapphire and Aquaman’s wife make an appearance.

This isn’t one of my favorite alternate worlds but it’s very close. I’ll definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys them.

April 8, 2009

The more books I read by Japanese authors, the more I think that I do not possess the level of self-awareness and intellect needed to read Japanese authors.

Introspective, moody and steered primarily through the body language of the characters, Red Colored Elegy is a poetic graphic novel about a couple, Ichiro and Sachiko. Written by Seiichi Hayashi in the seventies, it feels very much like I'm 'reading' a Japanese arthouse film.

It's about love, heartbreak, death, and the mishmash of feelings that every young person struggling with making a living for the first time has to go through. That's pretty much the best way I can sum up this book. Ichiro and Sachiko are a young couple, living in Japan in the seventies, trying to make it as a comic artist and an animator respectively. While it's set in a politically turbulent time in Japan's history, Ichiro and Sachiko skirt around the politics, as they are focused on their own personal struggles.

It's a pretty graphic novel, and it didn't take me long to read at all. Perhaps if I had reflected more on the meaning behind the art it would have taken me longer. I'm really shitty at doing that though, especially if the art is a little more obtuse than I'm used to. It's the same thing that makes me think poetry is boring. Admitting that is probably the most embarrassing thing I can do on a blog, but I make no claims that I'm a genius critic. I likes what I likes.

That being said, I didn't hate Red Colored Elegy. Like I said before, I'm probably just not the sort of person this book is meant to be for.

April 5, 2009

I read Persepolis last year for my first Graphic Novel challenge and really enjoyed it. The art was completely different from what I had seen at that point and the story was great. So when I found out about this one, I immediately grabbed it.

Embroideries was funny, it takes place in an evening, an after dinner discussion over tea among the women. Mostly it’s a discussion of their relationships with men, or those of friends whose stories they are retelling. Many of them involve virginity, Western vs. Eastern views, divorces, arranged marriages and how they live their own lives or bend the rules that the men in their lives try to impose. There’s a lot of funny stuff and some sad stories and I laughed out loud when I realized what embroideries means.

I’m not an Alice in Wonderland fan, just never really got into it. I read this graphic novel, for the artwork not the story. I discovered the art of Ben Templesmith when reading Wormwood and so I decided to try this to see more of it. I like the washed almost watercolor look of his art.

I don’t have much to say about this graphic novel. The story is about Alyss who has been kidnapped from Wonderland and the bodyguard with odd talents and a deadly hat, who is searching for her. He travels to different places, following the odd glowing lights, saving many girls from an imagination draining machine and learning of other enemies of Wonderland. Not a terribly interesting story, but I did enjoy the art.

The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there, and warmly debated the matter; the orthodox said - that it came from the air, and the heretics said -from the platter.

Comments: Here in this one large collection are adaptations of two Sherlock Holmes stories plus six more adventurous or ghastly stories and a parable. Each story is written/illustrated by a different person with a wide variety of styles shown from the serious to the cartoonish and even the quite strangely weird. A fabulous collection really, that couldn't better showcase the scope of Doyle's works.

I am quite familiar with Doyle, having read the entire Holmes canon, but from there my experience is lacking. I've read The White Company, an historical fiction novel, and can remember two short ghost stories, though I probably ran into a couple more in high school anthologies, I'm sure. Rick Geary's take on Holmes was pure brilliance. With his experience on his own Victorian series, he knows how to write and draw this type of material. If you ever read this Mr. Geary, why don't you think about doing a series of Holmes books sometime in the future. I for one will be standing in line! Rod Lott and Simon Gane also presented a very good adaptation of Holmes, though. My favourites aside from Geary's treatment of Holmes were Captain Sharkey, a pirate story, The Los Amigos Fiasco, a macabre yet humorous story and The Great Brown-Pericord Motor, the story of a man whose own greed turns himself insane. I certainly have an itching to get my hands on a volume of Doyle's short stories sans Holmes.

April 2, 2009

Stone Arch Books pride themselves in publishing safe graphic novels for young readers. A parent does not need to worry that an objectionable illustration or theme will pop up in a seemingly innocent looking book.

My FIRST Graphic Novels is a set of beginning books for Grades K-2, new for 2009, each with a different sport's theme, and the books each feature either a boy or girl as the main character. The first pages show how exactly to read a graphic novel; what order to read the panels and the balloons. These books have a lot of narrative rectangles, a smaller amount of word bubbles and plenty of sound effects. All of the words are written in proper lowercase sentence structure with all-caps reserved for the sound effect words. This is especially appreciated as children often find all-caps more difficult to read and for some reason, comic books and graphic novels are most likely to use an all-cap text throughout.

Each book also ends with an about the author and illustrator section, a short glossary of words presented that the child may not be familiar with, a page of Discussion Questions and one of Writing Prompts and a website where kids can go to find more info on the subject at hand. All of the above make these books also very useful in a homeschool or classroom setting.

Goalkeeper Goof by Cari Meister. Illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld. RL: 1.4. This book was especially appealing to my soccer playing son. David is great at kicking, dribbling and running but when his turn comes up as goalie he always misses the ball causing the other kids on the team to nickname him "Goalkeeper Goof". The coach gives David some good advice and he finds that he can save the ball when he tries. The book introduces the topics of name-calling, turning the other cheek, and paying attention to the task at hand. The 8yo (a struggling reader) read this book wonderfully with hardly any problem with words. He also enjoyed the story very much being a soccer player himself. As a parent, I found the graphic presentation of the book very accessible to a young reader. The illustrations are also very well done, bright and bold, and the characters are shown as belonging to a variety of ethnic groups. 5/5

The End Zone by Lori Mortensen. Illustrated by Mary Sullivan. (RL: 2.0) With just a slightly higher reading level than the previous book read in this series, this one was a bit harder for the 8yo to read. But the story was so interesting that it kept his interest and enthusiasm. The boys don't let Olivia play flag football with them but one day one of the boys is sick and calls her to take his place. This is her big chance! She takes her place on the team, has a great time and the boys appreciate her as a good player. Neither my son nor I had ever heard of flag football, so we had to wait until Dad came home to ask him and then ds got all the answers he was looking for! The theme that girls can do the same as boys is obvious but it wasn't "in your face" and handled very well. Boys and girls will enjoy this one. My son thoroughly read this with pleasure, and as a struggling reader there is nothing more I can ask for than books at his reading level that hold his almost 9yo interests. 5/5

The complete line of My FIRST Graphic Novel series, newly published in early 2009 are:The Goalkeeper GoofRah-Rah RubyThe End ZoneT-Ball TroubleLily's Lucky LeotardThe Kickball Kids

and six more are coming out in August and each will have a vehicle theme from trains to scooters!

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Welcome! I'm Nicola and I've been the host of this blog as of 2012. Previous hosts have been Vasilly, Chris and Nymeth, Laza and the originator, the much-missed Dewey. I hope this challenge will help spread the love for the graphic medium as well as lead those who already love it to great new books.

What Is Comics

Comics (kom'iks)n. plural in form, used with a singular verb. 1. Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer. - Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics